Amazon appeases German watchdog, but EU opens new probe

Amazon has reached a deal with Germany's anti-trust authority to overhaul its terms of service for third-party merchants, acting to appease regulators as the European Union announced its own investigation of the e-commerce giant.

Francis Maguire reports.

Advertisement

Amazon appeases German watchdog, but EU opens new probe

Amazon faces a new EU probe - just hours after it struck a deal to end one investigation by Germany.

Brussels is set to judge whether the online giant's terms of service and use of merchant data broke competition rules.

Amazon says it will fully cooperate with the probe.

Earlier Wednesday (July 17) it reached a deal with Germany's anti-trust authority to overhaul its terms of service for third-party merchants.

The country's Federal Cartel Office said it would drop its seven-month investigation, That after Amazon agreed to change its Business Services Agreement: (SOUNDBITE) (German) PRESIDENT OF THE GERMAN FEDERAL CARTEL OFFICE, ANDREAS MUNDT, SAYING: "There are around 300,000 retailers in Germany that use Amazon Marketplace, under Amazon's terms. And we had competition concerns about these terms. We shared these concerns with Amazon and in response Amazon changed its terms of service for merchants." Amazon said changes to its agreement will take effect in 30 days.

The new terms will see it comply with European rules on liability towards business partners on its Europe-based patform.

Silicon Valley's tech giants have faced more scrutiny from Europe in recent years.

The EU hit Google with billions of euros in fines earlier this year for breaches of competition rules.

Germany's anti-trust regulator also ordered Facebook to change how it handles user data after it found the social network abused its market dominance.